The present invention relates to a bill receiving and dispensing machine of bill-circulation type including a circulating-bill pooling means for pooling received bills in vertically accumulated condition and a circulating-bill feeding-out means having a roller for contacting the lowermost bill of the accumulated bills to feed out the accumulated bills in order from the lowermost bill by friction between the roller and the lowermost bill, and more particularly to a circulating-bill pressing-down apparatus used for the bill receiving and dispensing machine having a circulating-bill pressing-down means for pressing down the accumulated bills from the top thereof to provide to the roller sufficient frictional force for feeding out the bills.
Heretofore, there have been proposed bill receiving and dispensing machines which permit the received bills to be reused as the bills for dispensation. Such a bill receiving and dispensing machine is so constructed that it has a circulating-bill pooling means arranged intermediate of a received bill transferring route for pooling the received bills to be reused as dispensing bills and a circulating-bill feeding-out means arranged below the circulating-bill pooling means for feeding out the accumulated bills one by one from the lowermost side thereof by a roller in contact with the lowermost bill, and that the circulating-bill pooling means is provided with a bill containing box having a port arranged at the top thereof for receiving the received bills and an opening arranged at the bottom thereof for forming an entrance and an exit for the roller.
Such a bill receiving and dispensing machine is usually required to have a bill pressing-down means which presses the accumulated bills from the top thereof to provide to the roller sufficient frictional force for feedng out the bills. For example, Japanese laid-open utility model publication No. 078332/1985 discloses a bill pressing-down means of this type in which a bill pressing-down member for pressing down the accumulated bills from the top thereof toward a roller of the bill feeding-out mechanism is always urged toward the top of the accumulated bills regardless of the amount of the accumulated bills.
However, in the bill receiving and dispensing machine, since the bill pressing-down member must be retracted from the accumulated bills while the received bills are being supplied to the circulating-bill pooling means, frequent retracting and projecting motions of the bill pressing-down member of the prior art are required for receiving the bills into the circulating-bill pooling means. This makes it difficult to shorten the operation cycle time of the bill receiving and dispensing machine. In addition, the bill pressing-down means must be strongly constructed so as to be able to bear the frequent retracting and projecting motions of the bill pressing-down member and accordingly this increases the manufacturing cost of the bill receiving and dispensing machine.
Also, since the bill pressing-down member must move a long vertical distance from zero to maximum height of the accumulated bills so as to always ensure the bill pressing-down operation thereof regardless of the amount of the accumulated bills, it is difficult to realize a bill pressing-down means of small size or to reduce the overall size of the bill receiving and dispensing machine.